With a Wrathful Soul

There is only love, and when love fails, life fails.

O my Jesus, forgive us our sins. Save us from the fires of hell [that rage in our hearts, that in our weakness we feed]. Lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of thy mercy.

I want to repost a quote from Dostoevsky simply because I need to be reminded of it this morning and every morning:

"See, here you have passed by a small child, passed by in anger, with a foul word, with a wrathful soul; you perhaps did not notice the child, but he saw you, and your unsightly and impious image has remained in his defenseless heart. You did not know it, but you may thereby have planted a bad seed in him, and it may grow, and all because you did not restrain yourself before the child, because you did not nurture in yourself a heedful, active love. Brothers, love is a teacher, but one must know how to acquire it, for it is difficult to acquire, it is dearly bought, by long work over a long time, for one ought to love not for a chance moment but for all time. Anyone, even a wicked man, can love by chance."

(Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. Trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2002. 319.)

Quiet and Humble

If you haven't heard, Anne Rice has left Christianity ... but not Christ, she says. I'm a little upset about her announcement. Not so much because of her decision, but because of the reasons she gives for her decision. She has been wounded by us. (Lord, have mercy.) But I am rooting for her, and for others like her. I am rooting for people like Christopher Hitchens who is suffering with esophageal cancer. I feel kinship with them; I have an affection for them. I see Christ in them.

Anne Rice's story is important not because she's a bestselling novelist. Her story is important because it's been told before, and it's been told by Christ. But we clap our hands over our ears and heap our disregard onto a wounded sister's shoulders. Anne Rice left the Church because you and I fail to love our neighbor. It's that simple. You and I make the faith about issues and politics and a world of things other than Christ. She left because you and I fail to be quiet and humble. When someone doesn't share our views - whether it's about sexuality, abortion, politics, or liturgy - we bristle and spit, "You aren't Catholic if you ..." or "You cannot follow Christ and ..." This is not love, but judgment. There is a place for those who are spiritual to come along and exhort, encourage, and correct. But it is not my place. It is not yours.

Nothing animates the pious like issues: not God, not Church, not loving the poor and marginalized - nothing. A fight invigorates us. But all our "righteousness" will never change the desires of someone who is homosexual. We cannot raise one hand to protect the unborn and choke our brown neighbor with the other. We will never convince anyone of the love of Christ with our anger and judgment. We are called to be martyrs for Christ. To die. And by our love to be the sacrament of God to our world.

If anyone will kill the Church, the pious will.

God is love. He is full of mercy. We must love others because God loves them. (If we are in communion with God, then we will love whom he loves.) We must be quiet and, like a child, humble. We must pray always. As for Anne Rice, let me close with a quote I recently read: "We believe ... that Christ is present in any seeker after truth. Simone Weil has said that though a person may run as fast as he can away from Christ, if it is toward what he considers true, he runs in fact straight into the arms of Christ" (from For the Life of the World, by Alexander Schmemann).

Stuff

I am sorry that I have not kept up with my blog, but it has been busy and pushing my blog aside has been one of the better things I have done with my time. Since I have been gone, my oldest son started Kindergarten. He cried the entire first day of school. It was a rough couple of weeks. He is doing well now, seems to be enjoying school, but it still makes him a little nervous. Since I have been gone, I also began (with great trepidation) as a catechist for eighth graders at my parish. I teach Church history and mostly blather on and on - it is sort of like beating them with a stick until they're senseless. But if by the time the year is finished they know nothing but God is love, I will be happy. If I know it by the time the year is finished, I will be ecstatic.

Jack, that great lover of the automobile - specifically the truck - discovered the Disney-Pixar film Cars and I am ready to blow my brains out - it is on all the time.

Speaking of the boy, Jack used to answer "No" for every question asked of him - regardless of whether me meant yes or no - I am proud to report that he has finally begun saying, "Yes," which for him comes out quite handsomely as "Yessir." Very respectful and very southern, and it makes me chuckle every time he says it to my wife - everyone gets "yessir," irrespective of sex or age. We also recently discovered that he likes country music. I am considering changing his name to Hank.

Cate is growing too quickly; she has four teeth now. She enjoys time rooting around on the floor - and there are always great treasures to be found on our floors. Our family is in love again.

I have begun the discipline of writing; I sit down at my old green Hermes 3000 and type every morning. Not as much as I would like on most days, since I have other responsibilities. But I have about 100 pages now and am moving forward quite nicely. It is very rewarding seeing and feeling the pile of typed pages grow. It's a nice stack now and is roughly a third of the way into my first draft (my excremental draft, as Anne Lamott would say). If I do die before I finish, please burn it without reading it. "The earth was formless and void" - all that.

I hope all of you are well and I am looking forward to the time when we can simply sit down together for a while. Virtual is fine in the absence of actual, but it sure falls short.

1 John 4

Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God.

He who does not love does not know God; for God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No man has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his own Spirit.

And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we know and believe the love God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. In this is love perfected with us, that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because he first loved us. If any one says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should love his brother also.

1 Corinthians 13

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Peace and Love, Man

HT: The WØRD

And, and, and let me add, Stephen Colbert was on Fresh Air with Terry Gross today. You can hear that interview here. Or, rather, there. And on Sunday, the 23rd, A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest of All will air at 10 p.m. on the Comedy Channel.

Some Dostoevsky

"See, here you have passed by a small child, passed by in anger, with a foul word, with a wrathful soul; you perhaps did not notice the child, but he saw you, and your unsightly and impious image has remained in his defenseless heart. You did not know it, but you may thereby have planted a bad seed in him, and it may grow, and all because you did not restrain yourself before the child, because you did not nurture in yourself a heedful, active love. Brothers, love is a teacher, but one must know how to acquire it, for it is difficult to acquire, it is dearly bought, by long work over a long time, for one ought to love not for a chance moment but for all time. Anyone, even a wicked man, can love by chance."

(Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. Trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2002. 319)

What You Get at 4 #@(*% o'Clock in the Morning

Sometimes I wonder whether the real trouble with postmodernism in our church communities is not that we've subverted the truth, but that we've subverted love. We've entered our father's tent and we mock his nakedness. And love is a covering.

Something Is Rotten

The issue of illegal immigration is complicated, and I'm not sure how to address it. But to have, as we have here in North Carolina, counties that are actively implementing plans to rid themselves of illegal immigrants strikes me as nothing short of criminal and prejudicial. At the very least. And yes, I know they're illegal immigrants.

Jesus teaches us to treat the poor and the marginalized, the stranger and the foreigner, with love and compassion. Why aren't more churches speaking about this issue, reaching out to these people? Why are so many churches the very ones shouting for the illegals' removal?

2241 The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him.

- Catechism of the Catholic Church

Yes, the Church also makes provision for nations to limit immigration. But it is nonetheless distressing to see the richest people in the world walling out some of the poorest.

Love

As we were saying our goodbyes in Michigan, my six year old, Anna, looked up at two of her much-older cousins, Alecia and Hannah, and said, "I love you like a mother cow loves her babies."

The Communion of the Saints

I am tired of talking theology.

I speak with people who come from different traditions than my own faith tradition and it always seems as if there is no bridge where there ought to be bridges. It seems that many of us who love theology are more concerned with being right than righteous. And I am one of them (though less astute than most), making others feel as if they and their beliefs are somehow wanting.

I don't mean to. And I apologize for doing so. I try to walk the road of "Here is what engages and delights me about Catholicism" and I end up sliding a dusty toe onto the shoulder of "I know better than you."

It is not right.

I believe great things about Orthodoxy and Protestantism. I have been blessed by Protestantism, more than you can imagine. Since becoming Catholic, the Orthodox church has done little other than instruct me. But, Ah! I am Catholic.

Perhaps in conversion there is a natural tendency to be more critical of your former place than is reasonable. I don't know. But I do know that I have to wrestle with my pride as a Catholic as much as I did as a Protestant. I know that I still desperately need God's mercy. I know I am still desperate for Him.

And to those of you who will listen: Whatever the price of unity, I am willing to pay it.

So I get out of bed tonight because my soul is uneasy. I lay down a few words in search of rest: (1) Silence is almost always wiser than speaking. (2) The only apologetic is love.

Canticle

My soul is occupied,
And all my substance in His service;
Now I guard no flock,
Nor have I any other employment:
My sole occupation is love.

- St John of the Cross (Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom, 28)

Yeats, for Laura

The Young Man’s Song

I WHISPERED, ‘I am too young,’
And then, ‘I am old enough’;
Wherefore I threw a penny
To find out if I might love.
‘Go and love, go and love, young man,
If the lady be young and fair,’
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
I am looped in the loops of her hair.

Oh, love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away,
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon.

When You Are Old

WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.